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Watering Hole: Monday, September 12, 2011 – It’s Not For Getting High

For 18 years, I worked in the pharmaceutical industry. One major thing that I learned during that time is that the pharmaceutical industry is not focused on curing an illness. It is focused on making a drug that must be taken every day to mask the symptoms of an illness. It is all about profits and not about cures. When I left the industry, it was beginning to appear that drug discovery was getting close to reaching its apex. The pharmaceutical industry is always looking for new drugs to patent. During testing, many of these new drugs present serious safety issues and as a result, never make it to market.

The United States has the highest prices for drugs. That is because the pharmaceutical industry claims to take a hit in profits when selling drugs cheaper in other countries, particularly in countries that have socialized medicine. The industry needs to make up for this loss in profits by charging Americans more.

Here is a story about a compound that grows like a weed and has medicinal properties. Like all medicinal compounds that can be grown in a back yard garden, this plant is difficult to patent. What that means is the pharmaceutical industry can’t make exclusive profit from this plant. So the US government has stepped in and made this plant illegal.

Cats, superb post. My mom is on “Marcumar” a blood thinner, I don’t know if it is called the same in the US. She started to get it after there was a blod clot in her leg. As far as I know the drug used to be a short term remedy and discontinued after the danger has passed and then the underlying health issue needed to be tackled. Now it is a convenience drug. She’s on it since then (more than a year now).

My mother is law was on small doses of Aspirin due to her diabetes for years. It has as we know blood thinning effect as well. It wasn’t used as it initially was as a painkiller and fever reducing medication, but as a convenience drug.

Both women developed MDS (my mom is now in the stage of AML) a incurable disease of the blood creating cells in the bone marrow. My mother in law died in January last year. My mom is hanging in there, but the short term prognosis is evident. A long term prognosis, just isn’t there any more.

Does it have to do with blood thinners? I don’t know. Both were exposed to increased radiation during the Chernobyl fallout as well (as we all were) but the blood thinners may have been a contributing factor. At least that’s what I believe.

Hi EV – I believe that Marcumar is the same as Warfarin. These blood thinners are the same compound that is found in rat poison. My husband was on Warfarin for about one month due to a blood clot in his leg. The doctor wanted him to continue with the treatment and my husband refused. Instead, he drinks one or two glasses of red wine with dinner.

Cats, he’s smart your husband is. The thing is, the doctors of my mom (and another person I know, who’s on Marcumar as well) disagree. The one overseeing her chemo wants her to go as low as posssible, her own doctor keeps levels high. (I tend to agree with the former) I don’t trust the stuff and I will definitely tell my mom to have more red wine, as soon as she can have it again. If it doesn’t help, it makes life so much more fun.

I’ve been taking a blood thinner (warfarin) daily for 11 years now as treatment for blood clots (DVT) which formed in my legs following 18 hrs of brain surgery to remove a congenital AVM. It’s clearly not a cure, clearly not an ideal therapy, but it is, clearly, better than nothing at all. Coupled with a Greenfield filter (an in-line vena cava filter which is designed to prevent broken-off blood clot fragments from landing in heart or brain), it’s about the best medicine available, or so I’m told, for those of us similarly afflicted.

Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.

Meanwhile, I do hope your mom continues to ‘hang in there.’ Hope the same for myself as well, though I learned in late 2000 that the ‘hanging in there’ time frame can suddenly get a lot shorter than it once was.

Frugal – blood clot formation often occurs post surgery. Deep Vein Thrombosis (blood clots) can also happen after a fracture of a limb, especially after a broken leg. Is there a reason that you must remain on Warfarin for 11 years?

The clots still form, and I have that clot filter in my vena cava. Best to keep clotting at a minimum. This all started back in the early nineties when I got a clot in one leg, reason unknown. I took warfarin back then for a few months, then stopped with no problem. It wasn’t till 3 months after the surgery in early 2001 that the problem resurfaced, this time in both legs. In August 2001 they installed the filter. Oh, and the clotting way back then apparently had something to do with my own internal Drug War. I was also taking an anti-seizure drug (dilantin) which conflicted with warfarin. I finally was cleared to stop dilantin in 2009, following EEG and cranial MRI info that showed all was well in the penthouse. But warfarin will apparently be part of me till I’m served up as dinner for a wolf pack somewhere.

Tomorrow’s pro-time checking day … the local pharmacist here works with the local doctor and does the test. Saves me a 60 mile RT to the insurance company’s favorite lab in Pueblo. If I went up there, the cost would be covered; here I pay for it myself. Twenty bucks, about what it’d cost me for gas to make the round trip. Plus, the pharmacist likes to hear me bitch about Kaiser Permanente — they piss him off all the time too! Tomorrow I’m going to ask him if he’ll accept a chicken as payment. :)

Medical care in this country has become a complete and total farce. All that counts is inflow of dollars to corporate coffers. Like a Monty Python movie, but not quite as funny.

After spending all those years working in the pharmaceutical industry, I no longer contribute to charities such as the MS Society, Run for the Cure, Cancer Society, etc…. I believe that these organizations are not really interested in cures because if there was a cure, they would be out of business.

Cures are very costly to Big Pharma, hence to politicians as well. But there are other things that seem to work well. My older daughter, e.g., has been diagnosed with so-called Fibro Myalgia, a basically undefined “disease” that causes a lot of pain. Her “cure” (treatment) is actually worse than the disease: daily doses of Oxycontin. Cost: about $1400 per month for a pill that’s considered every bit as addicting as heroin. But since it’s prescribed and approved by the FDA, it’s perfectly legal.

I’m going to contact her about the cannabisinternational.org web site and suggest she look into the possibility of trying a different tack. Does Medicaid cover cannabis treatments? Uh huh.

Meanwhile, the merger of corporate and state power as in Big Pharma and bought-off politicians … there’s a word for that phenomenon, isn’t there?

The narcotics prescribed now all make me sick. I can vomit just from smelling Vicodin. I am convinced that we would all be better off using good old straight from the plant opium, but that wouldn’t make the drug companies a pile of money.

I agree. The latest is “Vitamin D deficiency”. Just about everyone has it. The doctors prescribe a large dose of vitamin D to be taken once/week for 8 weeks. This is not the health food store or over the counter vitamin D. It has to be this large dose of vitamin D made by the pharmaceutical industry.

“In 1980, fewer than 500,000 Americans were in prison; today, the number is 2.3 million. To put that statistic in perspective, the median incarceration rate among all countries is 125 prisoners for every 100,000 people. In England, it’s 153; Germany, 89; Japan, a mere 63. In America, it’s 743, by far the highest in the world. Include all the U.S. residents currently on probation or parole, and our country’s correctional population soars to about 7.2 million—roughly one in every 31 Americans. All told, the U.S. incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, even though it’s home to only 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants.”

Reminded me that back in the early 80s, my MN college-frosh nephew visited us in AZ during January’s semester break. He was majoring in the biological sciences, so while he was visiting I took him to La Jolla and introduced him to a friend, a professor at Scripps, and his wife (also a prof. at Scripps). Nephew was stunned; he’d heard of the professor who was a world renowned phycologist, a Brit, Oxford educated, the whole ball of wax. The four of us went to lunch, and I sort of just sat back and watched as a famous scientist encouraged a young budding and wannabe scientist to examine every facet of the world. “Where are you from, Paul?” Dr. Lewin asked.

“Minneapolis area.”

“Ah, yes. And how large is Minneapolis these days?”

“Somewhere between 400 and 500 thousand, last I heard.”

“How interesting,” Lewin responded. “That’s very nearly the same as the number of people incarcerated in prisons in this country.”

The look on the lad’s face was priceless; that thought had never crossed his mind before, not in any context. And all of a sudden there it was, and from such an unexpected source. Paul still mentions that little tidbit to this day, tells the story to his students. He’s now a full professor of biology at a college in Minnesota, and is well aware that education in this world consists of far more than just highly focused knowledge.

The professor is, btw and if anyone should be interested, author of numerous books including one little masterpiece called Merde: Excursions in Scientific, Cultural, and Socio-Historical Coprology. I had the honor of reading the manuscript for that one before it was published; Lewin described it to me as “A brief treatise on the nature of shit.” I checked on Amazon and see it’s still available, including a Kindle version. I, of course, have a first edition copy always handy on my shelf. ;)

Interesting what just a mention of the number of imprisoned Americans can bring back to mind yet one more time … and how such important concepts can be (intentionally) slipped into casual conversation and made unforgettable in the process.

frugal, I might just have a book for you that you maybe would enjoy. Don Winslow “The Power of the Dog”. That’s what the mentioning of La Jolla did to me, remind me of that book. It’s cool. Right there with The Black Rose Conspiracy of another author ;) . Different settings, different time, but in effect very similar.

Properly braced. It’ll be interesting to see if my take on the Drug Wars changes. I think that if things had been originally handled appropriately, instead of as what basically amounts to an assist for corporate interests (particularly Big Pharma), that corner of the world would be far less violent than it’s become. But that’s just my opinion, of course, based on what my reaction would be to legislation that outlawed, say, red wine. Plus, Arizona’s monster sheriff Joe Arpaio made his bones with the DEA. I think that’s likely what turned him into such a complete asshole (although there’s no doubt he had that propensity in-built). He’s no longer even human, thanks to the muscle the drug war policies have given him.

My cardiologist is trying to get my blood pressure to ‘normal’, so he put me on a combination of a new drug combined with my previous HZTC, and it does get my blood pressure to normal.
But it also makes me dizzy every time I stand up, look up, lay down or do any quick movement.
It seems to be ok when I drive, but I’m sure I just need to get into the gym or be more active and drop 20 pounds or so to get my BP on track. I hate this drug.

Cotton mouth? I’m on two BP drugs myself (and they succeeded dramatically for that purpose), in pretty much the smallest possible dosage. Definitely get the vertigo when sitting up or standing up too fast. When i’m tired, I can be very rocky trying to walk. The symptoms have gotten much better after a few months, although the cotton mouth is intermittent and persistent (and irritating).

How do you manage to be more active when you take a pill that discourages quick movement? Sure, you can take walks in your neighborhood, but to burn significant calories you have to raise your heart rate, and that means exerting yourself.

Yeah, that’s the conundrum. I can do some light rebounding on the mini trampoline, just getting my knees up good and high. That doesn’t seem to be a problem…And works up a nice sweat. I have a bar next to me that I can brace myself with if I need it…

America has has come a very long way in the medical field in the past century or two. Lots of impressive advances but I’m not sure we haven’t swung the pendulum too far one way and are trying to nail it there. Many treatments and remedies of the 19th century were pretty bogus but the basis for our present pharmacology had to have been pretty good. We went from mustard poultices and chewing tree bark to hitech isolation of the supposed essential components in fish oil for omega oils.

In some ways I think the scientific arrogance of modern medicine can’t see that things like homeopathic and even chiropractic medicine may have real validity. And I think a part of that is our desire for a simple fix that works right now. Wonder drugs and knives are not exactly what I see as fixing every problem, most of which took years to develop. Our binary thinking isn’t doing us many favors when it comes to health.

As I think back a few years, one of the things that strongly contributed to our dropping cable tv for good was the constant assault of never-ending pill commercials during the evening news. On every news channel save for PBS, it was “Tell your doctor” about one fucking pill after another, a cure for every ailment — except for my biggie, of course. Nothing for that one.

We found watching old movies to be infinitely more fun and rewarding. Still do. Missed the tenth anniv. of 911 in favor of an old one starring Melina Mercouri, Maria Schell’s little brother Maximillian, Peter Ustinov, and Robert Morley among others. First saw it on the big screen in 1964 — laughed then, laughed again yesterday, also noted that Melina Mercouri hasn’t changed at all in 47 years!

Many people don’t know the benefits of massage therapy. They seek out surgery before trying massage. As the saying goes, “if you want surgery, see a surgeon.” I have treated so many people for muscle injuries that later said to me, “how come my doctor didn’t know what to do?” I respond that doctors study disease without a strong focus on muscles and most pain, not all, is muscle pain.

Three people have received advance copies of Joe McGinniss’ book on the real Sarah Palin, one of them is Gary Trudeau.

The chickenshit Chicago Tribune has pulled the Doonesbury strip from its pages this week because it contains nuggets from McGinniss’s new book.

The Trib says, “the subject matter does not meet our standards of fairness [because] the strips include excerpts from a book that is not yet on the market and therefore unavailable for review or verification by the Tribune.”

But it’s a fucking cartoon! The character featured in it is fictional. Cheez-its. Did they treat Palin’s own delusional “Going Rogue” as if it had been fact-checked? It wasn’t.

One of the fascinating aspects of the coming Rogue whirlwind will be how the MSM handles it. Can they handle the Palinista blowback? Are they so afraid of being called “liberal”?

Saw John Oliver of TDS last Saturday night – oh how laughter is cathartic! He went after the people between the coasts a bit, Batshit got singled out for a few, but I think he reserved most of his hits for the myth of American execptionalism – but also was able to identify some areas where America is really unique….

Do you view that Americans hold the majority of Guiness World Records as a positive? Records like: How many rattlesnakes can you hold in your mouth? or The oldest male stripper (as John said: “Once I;ve told you this, you can’t unhear it”? (He’s 76 and works in Florida – supply and demand baby).

He made quite a bit of ground out of the number of ‘idiots and crazy people’ the US has – you don’t hear about China having a bunch of wierdos, or Japan, Germany etc…. just the US.

He told this beautiful story about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and an old geezer called Dave who drove him to airport in the dead of night through snow drifts – he was telling us about the ice castles the local students carve out of the snow and ice near the lake…… and then he hit us with where Dave felt like he was in life: “I’m where I want be” said Dave – “Where’s that?” Said John warming to the inner peace of a man who had seen enough of the world by his 70s….

EV mentioned Chernobyl earlier. I have wondered what effects I may have possibly suffered from Chernobyl. The accident was 26 Apr 1986, and I reported for duty to Ramstein AB, West Germany, around 5 May 1986. It’s hard for me to believe the air was “all clear” less than two weeks later. If anything, the radioactive stuff might have just been hitting the base. I don’t know, and if we were in any real danger, I don’t remember them telling us. They probably would not have told us anything – we had a job to do.

A friend who was stationed in Northern West Germany (Bremerhaven, I think) was told after he got out of the Army that he could not donate blood because of fears of CJS (Mad Cow Disease) from European meat. So I’ve got that to look forward to. :)

I haven’t been using the computer much because I (apparently) pinched a nerve in my lower back and have been in very serious pain for the past week or so. My doctor did give me a Rx for Percocet but, sadly, they do not seem to be helping much. I have an appt to see her tonight. Hopefully she can prescribe something stronger. I do not care about how loopy it makes me (in fact, I’d rather enjoy that). I just want the pain to go away.

Wayne – have you tried massage and Chiropractic? Acupuncture supposedly helps, too. I have back problems. Percocet has never given me pain relief. All it does is make me nervous and itchy. More women than men suffer negative side effects from Percocet. I saw the statistics on this. Good luck at the doctor.

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Wayne there are a great many exclusions, for blood donation – many have to do with people just being in Europe over a certain time period. CJD is, still, of major concern.
Blood Centers of the Pacific has about 50 questions to answer before one can donate (this is each time one donates) many dealing with traveling to, length of stay in European countries. Military service – where and when.

Tattoos; piercings where when and how long ago…
money for sex…
sex in jail…

Sometimes it takes longer to fill out the questionnaire than the blood donation itself (or so some think so).

Wayne, somehow I don’t get it. We can donate blood unless we have some active infection or some known lingering condition like old hepatitis. Other than that the blood will be tested after donation and that’s it. it is not as if people are dropping dead like flies after recieving blood

I had killer sciatica a few years ago, would have jumped off a cliff if I could only have been able to get to one. Doc gave me some Celebrex, apparently a sulfonamide, and I had my usual itchy response. No aspirin (I was on warfarin); ibuprofen not recommended. I took it anyway, it didn’t help much. Six weeks later, though, the pain just disappeared, much like doc said it probably would.

As Leonard, the Shaman in Northern Exposure once offered, “The body is an amazing self-righting machine.” Aided by a shot of decent whiskey (or a bottle of wine) every now and again, miracles can — and do — happen.

Stay tough, Wayne. And in the process, find a beautiful woman to hang out with, one who knows how to rub you the RIGHT way! Should be easy for you, from what I gather.

“That’s why these debates are so important. I want potential voters out there to have a better appreciation of these candidates – their strengths and weaknesses. I want to make sure we can drill down on where they agree and where they differ. When the candidates dodge the questions, I will follow up and press. That’s what the voters want, and I’m looking forward to this opportunity”

Social Security, unlike a Ponzi scheme, is not run for the financial profit of the people who run it; in fact, the government is running it at a loss, and that loss is projected to increase. Participating in Social Security, unlike a Ponzi scheme, is involuntary. And Social Security, unlike a Ponzi scheme, can be reformed so that it becomes a sustainable program. Geeze.

The biggest applause of the night goes to Newt Gingrich for saying that Barack Obama is “scaring” the American people. Then he uses what I think is a reference to the effects of a national default as if it were a free-floating threat to senior citizens. Pretty much disgusting, when you think about it.

Why does Herman Cain keep going back to Chile.. Under Pinochet, they took those steps (Shock Doctrine), and Pinochet was a tyrant, a terrible dictator, and a war criminal. Why does he hold that up? Continually?

In Chile, they instituted all of Milton Friedman’s economic theories. Greg Palast wrote about this. he was one of “the Chicago Boys” who help[ed come up with that. That was before he became one of the good guys.

Huntsman, Ron Paul, and, forgive me, Michele Bachmann are the only ones that are saying anything that remotely sounds “Republican or Conservative”… I have a lot of family and friends that are conservatives).
The rest are over the top nuts, and have no credibility or chance.

Perry seems to believe that tax cuts will be paid for by tax raises. Seriously, this guy is frightening. He gets asked how to pay for tax cuts, and he gives us a lecture about spending. Now, tax cuts are government spending – just because Obama is proposing it.

So did Texas cut taxes for big corporations? Did they also cut taxes for the little people? All the people?
As for those corporations that hired.. Did they pay a living wage? Or minimum wage (or lower)? Slave wages?

A junior Tea party memmber asks: “of each dollar that I earn, how much should I be allowed to keep?” Oh Lord. Can I answer that with a question? How much does he enjoy the post office or paved roads, or national parks, or any number of Gov’t services for the WELL-fare of the people….?

Romney actually is making sense on the Fair Tax, except for the tax exemption for savings accounts. It would increase the burden on the middle class. The wealthy would shift purchases off-shore, the poor would fall into a black market, and the middle class would have to pay it.

Well, you know, Rumsfeld had a BIG interest in Tamiflu, drug of choice for the bird flu. Remember the bird flu scare? They made a TON of money in that scare that was rammed down the throats of everyone on the planet.

Been there, done that. My son broke both bones in his leg (shattered them) in his twenty’s. He had NO health insurance. The hospital wouldn’t take him in, but instead had him come in the following morning for his surgery, putting in plates and screws. After he woke up, they sent him home with some drugs. No help, just drugs. We had to fly up and take care of him for days. After he was coherent again he was able with his job to work from home on his computer. Followup wasn’t great. Nobody wants to help you when you don’t have insurance.
He was paying on his bills for YEARS. This year he finally paid it all off (debt). He was lucky that he had a good job that allowed him to work it off. NOW he has health insurance, and appreciates it’s importance.

Amazing.. He said the TRUTH and these people are nuts.
I don’t agree with Ron Paul on much, but I have respect for him because he DOES tell the truth, he isn’t bought and paid for, and he means what he says. Of course, he’s a true Libertarian, and I really don’t agree with anything they stand for.

They need a stable Afghanistan so they can build that oil and gas pipeline. That is why we are there, and why we’re not leaving – short and sweet.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline
The multinational corporations wouldn’t build that pipeline until the government was stabilized. That is where all our bases are located – along where the pipeline is going. This is about a lot of money. A LOT of money. As usual.

I’m throwing up in my mouth right now. As to the White House, we’re getting more beds, fewer tsars, the collected works of Hayek, a babe-wife, a bust of Churchill, sacred constitutional documents, flava, and a Harley. Fuck you, Wolf.

I just realized.. Nobody brought up the death penalty/execution record Rick Perry holds (as in the MOST ever), and the gentleman who was likely innocent and Perry ignored the evidence and let him be executed anyway. You’d think that would be a good question..

Cain (and the others, apparently) doesn’t get it that if we can’t or won’t pay off the Treasury Bonds bought by Social Security, it will do more to destroy the credit rating than not raising the debt ceiling. Yet that is in their long range plan to keep from taxing the wealthy, by not paying back Social Security.

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The way that bunch talked: just do away with Government and all will be well. They need to let us know what their definition of ‘Government’ is. pRick Perv was going on about the Feds needing to pay more money and attention to the f’g fence and border patrol.
Perv – can’t have it both ways — either go it alone or stop blaming then begging the Feds for money

Hi, gang. I’m just checking in before bed as I recover from another long weekend. I did read some bits about tonight’s debate and I think that the message from the GOP debates so far is; as vile as the people on stage may sound, those who attend are more vile still. The whole damn bunch are sociopaths if not psychopaths. It’s truly disturbing that these people, who cheer to let people like me, who lost everything due to illness, die. And they are also the ones who want to carry guns in our schools and bars.

Pete rest as easy as you can. These people can never define your importance to us or our society. Their sickness is a major downgrade or drawdown to the collective ideal to always take care of those in need. While we need to “keep on eye” on the malnourished miscreants, we need to elevate ourselves to find the energy to resist their slime. Salt alone won’t do it. You and I will certainly die but not on their fucking terms.

Not only the pharmaceutical companies. DuPont had a hand. Henry Ford was singing the praises of hemp fiber (used like fiberglass) and resin for car side-panels, and making substances similar to petroleum plastics from the oils and resins of hemp seeds. DuPont recognized the competition, and started purchasing legislators.

A friend of my sister has a industrial hemp company.( Bavaria, Germany ) He’s selling all kinds of hemp based products for insulation and whatnot. My sister has a hemp filled mattress, sweeeeet dreams, the fact that hemp could replace ever so many crude oil based products is totally ignored. I think on purpose. It would just be a problem for big oil and big pharma and we can’t have that.

And, nevermind hemp’s non recreational capacities, I like a smoke once in a while,too.